The modern city of Yerevan is based on the foundation of the Erebuni fortress that was founded in 782 BC. Since then, it has been continuously inhabited, and its inhabitants are pleased to note that their city is older than Rome.
Yerevan, however, had remained a relatively small city until the Russians conquered the Caucasus at the beginning of the 19th century. Later, it became the capital of the short-lived First Armenian Republic, the first independent Armenian state after the Cilician Armenian Kingdom in 1375.
The First Republic was established on May 28, 1918, in the chaos that followed the end of WWI and continued until the end of November – beginning of December 1920.
The large-scale map of Yerevan presented below was probably published by the government of the Democratic Republic of Armenia before the capture of the country by the Bolsheviks.
Yerevan in the times of the First Republic of Armenia. The Democratic Republic of Armenia, Yerevan, 1920. Department of Geography and Maps, Library of Congress.
Source: Online Exhibition “Know Wisdom and Instruction”: Armenian Literary Tradition in the Library of Congress.
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